MINISTRY, The Show Review

We sent Jason Quinlan, aka Dick Delicious to Ministry's Los Angeles gig over the weekend and he loved it.

Club Nokia, Los Angeles (Relapse Tour) We got down to the show just before Ministry went on. The hybrid goth / metal fan base Ministry accumulated over he years looked basically the same, except a little grayer and a fatter than when I'd first seen them in the early nineties.

The place was about 65% full. Since the "Relapse" tour only consisted of 10 shows total (due to Al's health issues). The real selling point of the show is that the Ministry backing band consists of 50% of Rigor Mortis (Casey Orr and Mike Scaccia). Rigor Mortis is one of my all time favorite thrash bands and Mike Scaccia's right hand is easily the fastest guitar picking on the planet.

The set opened with "Gouldiggers" with the chorus "I'm not dead yet." It was clear by a few minutes into their set that Ministry certainly was nowhere near dead. My only complaint is they could have had Mike's guitar turned up in the mix. Hell, they could have mixed the other guy (Sin) out for all I care. An interesting thing happened during the 2nd song: The keyboard went out, which was actually a bonus and made the band song HEAVIER!
The majority of the set was taken from "House's of the Mole", "Rio Grand Blood", "The Last Sucker", and "Relapse", with an occasional flashback to "Land of Rape and Honey". The band was tight as hell; drummer Aaron Rossi is a fucking human metronome. One thing that was kind of funny was that Al Jourgensen relies so heavily on distortion and delay that when his vocals got out of time it made for some funny and rather embarrassing effects when the delay didn't synch with the band.

They wrapped up the pre-encore section of the show with "Khyber Pass" and after a brief recess returned with (rather predictably) "Psalm 69", "N.W.O.", "Just One Fix", and "Thieves" – all 4 of which are brutal classics that I always love to hear. Hell, my jaded ass even jumped in the pit for "Psalm 69".

All and all, it was the best Ministry show I've ever seen in my life. The current band smokes the previous incarnation with Tommy Victor (which never seemed to work for some reason).

If you are in one of the cities that Ministry will be coming to on this tour, I highly suggest you go. They are still at the top of their game, and something makes me doubt there will be a relapse of this "Relapse".
Toodles (Jason Quinlan) aka,
Dick Delicious
Thanks!